


Baby It's Cold Outside

by iamtheoneinthehole



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 07:38:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1461163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamtheoneinthehole/pseuds/iamtheoneinthehole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahot6, Ray/Ryan centric: Ray gets over stressed and accidentally yells at the guys. He leaves their house, and runs. When he realized he got lost, he is stubborn and doesn't call anyone. Ryan finds him a few hours later, Ray soaking wet and in tears. :3</p>
<p>Ray Narvaez Jr was about this damn close to losing his mind...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby It's Cold Outside

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the lovely prompt anon- I really hope I managed to do it the justice it deserves! Enjoy!

Ray Narvaez Jr was about _this damn close_ to losing his mind.

He’d just had one of _those_ days. The ones that made you want to shut yourself away somewhere, shut out the whole damn world and just… ‘ragequit’ life. Because the hours had just seemed to _drag_ to the point that it’d almost become tortuous and… well admittedly that’d probably been, at least in part, due to how little sleep he’d been getting lately.

Because as they geared up to move to the new office, he’d recently found himself overwhelmed the quantity of rapidly approaching deadlines. The transfer meant that they had to put in that extra effort into staying on top of their work,  filming content ahead of schedule and getting their edits to Burnie or Geoff’s desk twice as fast as any of them were used to, in order to make the transition as fluid and seamless as possible. And so Ray had found himself putting in a considerable amount of extra hours into the Let’s Plays over the last few weeks or so, just to make sure they stayed on target… and inevitably that extra work had begun to take its toll on his energy levels.

Plus there was the fact that the weather was far too damn hot right now for him to comfortably share a bed with his boyfriends. Because when you were in a relationship with five other men, three of which in particular were notorious cuddlers (Geoff, Jack and Gavin), some sort of snuggle pile before they all drifted off was kind of inevitable really. And yeah, it sounded pretty damn nice in practise…

And in fact, it actually was in winter when the bitter cold of a December breeze would have them all huddled together under the bed sheets in a mess of tangled limbs, their companionable silence as they curled up together only broken the occasional squawk from Gavin as Ray or Michael couldn’t quite resist resting a colder limb against the Brit’s surprisingly warm skin (because seriously the guy was like a goddamn space heater sometimes).

But in the run up to summer? It became nothing short of a warm, sweaty, stifling sort of hell as attempted snuggling was quickly abandoned in favour of trying to keep as much distance as possible… it was nothing personal but none of them would ever get any goddamned sleep otherwise. Still, the problem when you shared a bed with five other people was that there was only so much free space you could use to shift away from them when the heat got too much, and so ultimately you’d end pushed up a little closer to someone than was ideal… and sometimes all it took was that one point of contact, that one burst of body heat, to make any thoughts of a decent night’s sleep an impossibility.

Which meant that even when he wasn’t frantically trying to meet some deadline right now; it’d been pretty much impossible to get a decent night’s sleep.

And so he’d arrived at the office that morning, unsurprisingly sleep deprived. He’d immediately gone to boot up his monitor, leaving it to load up while he’d gone in search of the coffee he’d desperately need to fuel him through the next few hours... So naturally he’d felt more than a little frustrated when he’d found out that Gavin had jammed the coffee maker somehow in the few minutes since their arrival and, apparently, despite his, Miles and Kerry’s efforts, they hadn’t been able to figure out how to _un_ jam it since.

But the Brit _had_ seemed apologetic as he’d explained the situation, and had quickly made the offer to go grab some coffee with him from that nearby corner coffee shop they frequented as soon as they had the chance... So he’d quickly pushed his annoyance aside, forcing into some tucked away corner of his mind as he teased the Brit that the coffee better be on him then, slinging a casually possessive arm around the man’s waist as they passed that new intern who quite obvious had the hots for the man and perhaps channelling a little of that frustration into a look that screamed ‘back the fuck off’ as they made their way back to the Achievement Hunter office.

\----

The first thing on the cards to record that day had been a Let’s Play in some indie game Ryan had stumbled across on steam and that apparently deserved way more credit than it was getting… And since Ray was all for indie games, especially considering some of his personal favourites could probably be considered as falling into that category, he’d been quick to support Ryan on his bid to get the game played. Sure he’d never played the game himself but… generally he found his boyfriends’ tastes when it came to this stuff really weren’t so different to his own. He trusted Ryan not to pick a crappy game, or for him and the others to finds ways to make it fun anyway if his trust actually turned out that he’d misplaced his trust there so...

What the hell, YOLO right?

And at the first, it’d actually been kind of fun. There was definitely a certain novelty to playing a game he wasn’t actually familiar with and apparently he hadn’t actually been wrong to trust Ryan’s taste in gaming. Plus the fact that Gavin kept dying every two seconds was pretty goddamn funny and he could tell that all of them had the feeling that this would be a pretty great Let’s Play once they’d edited it together… and then the server had crashed.

They’d assumed it’d be a one-off incident and, after some light ribbing while Ryan quickly resolved the issues they were having, they assumed it’d all be sorted and they’d be able to continue playing… and then ten minutes later it’d crashed again leaving their computer ‘expert’ to let off a string of muffled curses that almost put Michael to shame as he’d moved to reboot the server, hoping that would resolve the problem the way whatever he’d done earlier had obviously failed to do… And Ray had forced himself to keep a level head about the situation, knowing that all of this was _far_ from Ryan’s fault and that this shit just happened sometimes. Besides, based on the triumphant grin on his boyfriend’s face as he’d rebooted the game a second time, it seemed whatever problems they were having here really _had_ been resolved this time...

And then it’d crashed a third time and, by this point, they were all been getting antsy over it, though none of them more so than him since he knew every damn minute longer that he spent here was cutting into his editing time… which would then end up cutting into the lunch break he so desperately needed right now. And he still knew, deep down, it wasn’t Ryan’s fault that any of this was happening, and that the man _definitely_ hadn’t planned on this, but that still didn’t quite stop his annoyance towards the man from building up a little more every time they had to restart the damn Let’s Play all over again.

In the end, it’d actually gotten to the point that Ryan had offered to let the others go work on other things while he fixed the server and Ray had honestly felt like blowing the man then and there just for that because one more fucking reboot and he might actually lose his damn mind here… But then Geoff had cut in, insisting on finishing up the Let’s Play before any of them were allowed to take any breaks since there were on a goddamn schedule here and...

Well Ray understood why the man was so insistent on that, of course he did. The ever looming office switch really didn’t leave much room for procrastination on any of the projects they worked on and _no one_ was under more pressure in the Achievement Hunter office because of that than Geoff but... that still didn’t stop him from practically wanting to scream in frustration when the server crashed a fifth damn time about five minutes later.

\----

Eventually they’d managed to complete the Let’s Play and Ray had _finally_ been able to go out and grab his coffee as well as a well-deserved break... In the end, Gavin had been kidnapped by Burnie to film a few new vines for the Roosterteeth channel so he hadn’t be able to come with him, though he’d still subbed him the money for his coffee, even after Ray had insisted he’d just been being an asshole before when he’d teased him about that. Gavin had insisted though and fuck knew the Brit was damn stubborn when he wanted to be.

So roughly midday had found him at that little street corner coffee shop, ordering a large coffee with his boyfriend’s money and briefly musing on whether or not this made him a kept man as he waited for the barista to finish his order...

Of course he’d been in a bit of a rush since Geoff had wanted to film AWHU as soon as possible when he got back (since he was _still_ filling in for Caleb) and so, as a result of that, he’d foolishly forgotten to check which order he’d grabbed off counter before rushing back to the office… So it was only once he’d sat down in his chair in the office and taken a sip of something so ridiculously sickly sweet that he’d actually ended up gagging a little that he’d actually realized he’d fucked up here.

Of course his boyfriends had found it hilarious, Jack and Michael both falling into something bordering on hysterics when they’d noticed the almost exaggerated grimace of disgust on their boyfriend’s features and wasn’t that just fucking great that _they_ was finding this funny because now Rayhad to get through the rest of the goddamn day without any caffeine to fuel him since there was no way he was going to manage to drink this shit.

And once AHWU was over, Ray was left to edit the footage he’d been meant to get around to working on earlier, before the server had decided to fuck them up the ass. The same damn footage that was due on Burnie’s desk later on that day. It was for the Minecraft Let’s Plays they’d filmed last week and honestly, he almost felt as if he’d aged a lifetime in the hours he’d spent in front of his computer trying to find and edit together the necessary footage to make the video a success… It didn’t exactly help either that this happened to be one of those ideas ‘Plan G’ had come up with that really hadn’t transferred so well into the actual Let’s Play itself. Sure the banter they had running throughout the footage still made him smile but… even that was a little lack lustre at points so, it wasn’t as if he had an endless wealth of footage to work with here.

Worst of all, his boyfriends kept distracting him as he tried to get the edit done, asking him about whether or not certain games would make good future Let’s Plays (Geoff), or if he was feeling okay every once in a while (Jack; since the guy was practically empathic when it came to these things and had likely picked up on Ray’s crappy mood… and he knew the man meant well but even his concern was chipping away at Ray’s rapidly depleting patience right now. Gavin would turn to him every two minutes or so to ask him one of those weird questions that reminded him exactly why there’d once been a ‘Google or Gavin’ segment on the podcast… and then there was Michael.

He’d obviously noticed his crappy mood just as much as Jack had only he’d decided to take an entirely different approach to it, namely by coming up with some of the worst fucking chat up lines he’d ever heard. And at first? It’d weirdly helped a little, actually managing to put a not quite smile on his lips as he’d continued work on his edit and chiming in with the occasional snarky remark of his own in response… but gradually even that had managed to get under his skin to the point where he was actually having to school his expression to one of indifference just so his boys wouldn’t see how kind of irrationally pissed off he really was...

But hiding his frustrations had done absolutely fucking _nothing_ for his productivity levels and so he’d naturally wound up having to stay late to finish up the edit, the rest of his boyfriends heading home a little earlier since they’d somehow all managed to finish every single piece of the damn work they owed (even Gavin, and the Brit was almost _never_ on top of his workload).

And so they’d left him, with nothing more than a few quick kisses to his cheeks or forehead, Jack’s arms briefly draping themselves over Ray’s shoulders to pull him into a quick, warm hug that’d actually soothed him a little until it was gone, and a promise not to push himself ‘too hard’ (which honestly felt more like a taunt at this point than the concerned advice he knew it actually was). Left him to stew in his own frustrations as he attempted to edit together the footage… only to actual break down a little and let out the aggravated scream, that’d been building somewhere within him for most the day, when his monitor had suddenly frozen up, just seconds before he’d planned to save his footage...

Lindsay had ended up popping her head around the corner after that, making some light hearted comment about him clearly spending too much time around ‘ragequit’ since he’d started to sound like him. After that though her expression had shifted to one of concern as she’d taken in the frozen screen and the slightly panicked look in Ray’s eyes as he tried to restore his missing footage somehow…

And, being Lindsay, she’d actually ended up offering to stay and help since she didn’t want to leave him in an editing crisis, especially since she’d been there enough times to know how much that sucked to deal with alone. He’d, ultimately, waved her off though, claiming it was nothing (though, based on the expression on Lindsay’s face, he’d fallen pretty damn short of convincing when he’d made those claims) and that he should be able to sort things out well enough on his own, because the last thing he wasn’t to do was cut into Lindsay’s evening because of his own fucking stupid mistakes…

And so she’d reluctantly left him to it and about ten minutes later Ray found himself regretting that he’d sent her away as his screen once again cut to black and _fuck_.

\----

In the end, it’d taken another hour to re-edit the footage he’d lost and a good half an hour after that to polish his edit and send it to Burnie before he was _finally_ able to go home, by this point wanting nothing more than to eat some food and then collapse into bed with his five boyfriends…

Of course, they’d had other ideas.

"You know it’s been a while since we’ve had a game night together." Geoff had suggested casually the moment Ray had gotten in from work and he’d been fully ready to wave off the idea, encouraging the gent to maybe save it for some other time when they hadn’t just all worked a long day at the office but… it appeared his pleas would’ve fallen on deaf ears as suddenly the room filled a buzz of excited voices and wide grins and a few puppy dog eyes, courtesy of Michael and Gavin, once they’d realized Ray wasn’t quite so enthused by the idea as they were… And, in the end, since Ray could readily admit to being totally fucking whipped (to the point that it was almost embarrassing) when it came to his boyfriends, he hadn’t had the heart to say no to that look.

And so they’d ended up having their ‘game night’ and Ray had desperately fought to keep his eyes open and tried to ignore the way his boyfriends’ voices were starting to become just a little too loud and a little too obnoxious for him to deal with as they trash talked and celebrated their victories, Ray unable to hold in the eye-roll when Gavin had all but flung himself at Michael in a ‘Team Nice Dynamite’ victory celebration.

Despite his serious and growing need a quiet room to lie down in (for a few hours… or days… or maybe even weeks at this rate) though, he’d been having a good enough time to pretend he was fine for his boyfriends’ sake. After all, they were having a fun evening and the last thing Ray wanted to do was to rain on his boyfriends’ parade just because he hadn’t gotten enough goddamn sleep the night before…

But then the food Geoff had made for them was ready and the gent had been handing it out, with Gavin’s assistance (since none of them wanted to bother to move anywhere other than the floor where they’d all sprawled out to play these video games since their carpets were surprisingly comfy and… well they were a bunch of guys who made their living sitting around on their butts playing video games so… lazy kind of came with the job description) when suddenly the Brit had stumbled a little, dropping Ray’s plate with a loud crash, the shards of the plate thankfully not managing to harm him or any of the others sprawled out on the floor but Ray had barely even registered that fact. Because after the fucking awful day he’d had, this last little thing was enough to make the man see red.

“What the actual fuck Vav? You realize if that’d smashed anywhere else that could’ve really fucking hurt one of us? I mean… fucking hell, learn to watch where you’re fucking going... you’re a grown fucking man. I shouldn’t have to tell you this shit.”

There’d been a beat of silence as Gavin’s expression had shifted from apologetic to something strongly resembling a kicked puppy, and Ray had been given a few moments to regret what he’d just said before suddenly Geoff’s voice had been cutting through the tension with a, “Was that real fucking necessary Ray? I have more food here and no one was actually hurt and sometimes these things just fucking happen. Now get the fuck over whatever it is that’s crawled up your ass today and apologize.”

“Why should I? None of you ever apologize for the shit you put me through.”

“The shit we put _you_ through? What the ever-loving fuck has gotten into you?”

“Gotten into me? Maybe a little bit of honesty because yeah, you do put me through shit. Geoff you’re constantly at me about the fucking editing and I know, it’s late sometimes but guess why? Because my boyfriends won’t give me a fucking moment’s peace to get it done. And Michael fucking ‘ragequit’ Jones… you’re the goddamn reason I almost always leave work with a fucking headache because _somebody_ apparently forgets that there’s other people in the goddamn room while he’s recording. And Jack. You’re always fucking _nagging_. I swear it drives me damn near insane sometimes. If something’s fucking wrong, I’ll be sure to let you know okay so quit asking. And Ryan you’d think for someone who claims to be a fucking ‘computer expert’ that you’d actually know how to run a goddamn server without making it crash by now. I mean for fuck’s sake, I know we don’t act like it but we’re meant to be goddamned professionals... And don’t even get me fucking started on Gavin. You somehow manage to fucking break everything. The coffee machine, the plates, every goddamn Let’s Play just… holy fuck I swear sometimes you’re just like a fucking child.”

There was a longer beat of silence and suddenly the words Ray had just blurted out caught up to him and he could see the hurt in all of his boyfriends’ eyes now and _oh god, he’d fucked up everything…_

“If you really feel like that… then why bother with us in the first place?” Had been Jack’s eventual response to Ray’s rant, though he knew the man well enough to know what his words really meant. _Leave. You’re ruining everything_ … and he was. He was ruining their evening and making them all feel like shit all because he’d happened to have a fucking awful day and work and now he’d snapped and… he couldn’t fucking bear the way they were looking at him right now.

He knew he should stay, should apologize, should at least say something to try and make this right… but when it came down to it, Ray was a fucking coward with confrontations once the initial angry fire had burned down… and so he’d done what any coward would do in this situation and had bolted from the room before anyone could say anything.

——

Ray wasn’t really sure how long he’d been walking through the quiet, empty streets, the faint regret about not grabbing his hoodie before he’d fled the apartment playing in the back of his mind because the night air was icy cold and his shirt really wasn’t holding up against its chill right now. But that faint regret had been all but lost and forgotten in the shadow of the hulking monster of his own guilt over what he’d said (more like _screamed_ really) before he’d stormed out.

Which must’ve been hours ago now judging by the way the skies seemed to have slipped into an inky black at some point as he’d wandered aimlessly. And the darker it got, the more the winds seemed to surge up around him, icy cold fingers dragging across his arms as he battled against the elements to keep himself from shivering. And if he happened to lose that battle? Well, really it was no more than he deserved right now.

Because how the fuck could he have said those things to them, to the men he loved and who hadn’t done a damn thing other than to dare to want to spend some time with him at the end of a long day and what goddamn business did he have snapping at them for that? It’d been selfish and seriously fucking dumb and honestly? They probably hated him for it… not that he’d blame them since Ray wasn’t exactly his own biggest fan right now.

_They’d all looked so hurt… it wasn’t even as if they’d been angry, it’d be easier if they had but... they’d just looked so…_ He quickly dislodged the thought from his head before it could fully take root, the guilt already gnawing away enough at his gut for him to want to add any more to that as he slipped down a narrow alleyway, headed towards… who knows where at this point? Ray found he didn’t really care in that moment, so long as it was as far away from his boyfriends as possible, far away so he wouldn’t be able to hurt them anymore.

And those words Jack had said _why bother with us, why bother with us… why do we bother with you?_ He knew that the man had never uttered the last phrase and yet… it’d felt like that may as well have been what he’d been saying. And the worst part was? Ray couldn’t even think of a good goddamn answer to that question right now.

Because why _did_ they bother with him really? He was a little scrawny in comparison to most of boyfriends, and couldn’t really make it work for him like Gavin did. He made dumb jokes, nearly always handed in his edits late, and wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. The best things he had going for him were his snark and his Gamerscore, the latter of which wasn’t exactly a key factor of what made him ‘boyfriend material’ and the former? Well he’d essentially shot himself in the foot with _that_ tonight hadn’t he?

He’d probably been wandering for roughly another hour or so before the cold really started to get to him, a slight shiver now clinging to his body, no matter what attempts he made to warm it, and suddenly he started to regret his decision to storm out of the apartment alone, not even bothering to grab his phone in the process, because his hands were icy cold, bordering on numb, and he honestly couldn’t be sure if the shadows he was seeing on the walls were cast by living things or eerily shaped inanimate objects…

He hadn’t full out started to panic though until he’d reached what he believed to be the main road, only to find a deserted sort of cul de sac, the sole flickering street light casting its slightly frenzied light over a small cluster of houses, essentially, confirming one of Ray’s greatest fears; he was lost. Lost, alone, in the dark…

And the rain too he suddenly realized as a sole drop of water managed to catch the side of Ray’s forehead on its way down, another following it moments later as it caught the end of the man’s nose… and suddenly it was if some sort of deity with a fucked up sense of humor had decided to dump a bucket of ice cold water over the spot where Ray stood, the cold water actually managing to draw an audible gasp from his lips (and he really did hope those shadows had been cast by inanimate objects now or Ray was most liked boned here) as he’d quickly ducked under a nearby tree for shelter, curling in on himself a little once he was under it in the attempts to stave off the cold a little, even as it felt as though his entire body was turning to solid ice as the rain continued to pelt down on top of him.

\----

It was two hours since their boyfriend had fled their apartment, leaving behind his hoodie, keys and any way of contacting him and… well to say Ryan was growing concerned about the collective radio silence on his boyfriend’s whereabouts would be an understatement.

None of them had really known what to do at first after Ray had snapped at them. They’d all been a little in shock and a lot hurt by the cruel cutting words that’d fallen from his lips and, as such, it’d taken a good few moments for any of them to fully register the fact that their boyfriend had stormed out into the night with no jacket to keep him warm, no phone, no keys, no nothing… and it was then that the panic had begun to set in. They’d all quickly agreed to split off and search for Ray, giving each other regular phone calls to check in with each other as they did and agreeing to ring the moment they managed to find him…

But the only calls Ryan had received so far were check ins from the other boys and the night just kept getting darker and colder and he found himself having to force back the statistics he knew about mugging in the streets he was searching, not liking the thought of how heavily the odds would be stacked against his boyfriend if he happened to run into one of them in a dark alleyway, especially since he currently had on him nothing that the mugger would want…

And there were other statistics threatening to play through his head too about missing persons and hypothermia but Ryan forced them back too, focusing his attention on finding his boyfriend instead of what might happen if they didn’t reach him in time… because those kinds of thoughts were, honestly, more than a little unbearable to even consider at this point.

Because what would they do without Ray Narvaez Jr in their lives? What would _he_ do without the man’s slight smirk when he’d deliver some perfectly crafted snarky comment during a Let’s Play, or the endearing way the man’s eyes would narrow in concentration when he was trying to get a new achievement on a game. What we he do without the warmth of the man’s hugs when he’d visit the warehouse to keep Ryan company or the soft, fond smiles he’d offer him in those quiet moments they’d share curled up on the couch of their shared apartment, watching some dumb, corny movie since Ryan had a secret guilty pleasure for them and Ray was the only one in their relationship who didn’t mind indulging him in that, though not without a little merciless teasing first... What would he do without the man’s kisses, soft and languid or harsher and possessive, or the almost entrancing feeling of the man’s skin against his, or the quiet murmured ‘I love yous’ he’d whisper sometimes as they’d drift off to sleep.

The truth of the matter was, Ryan needed him, was pretty damn sure all of them did, and he’d be damned if it was some dumb fight they’d had that took the man from them.

And so he continued searching, letting out an audible cuss into the crisp night air when the rain started to pelt down on him. He tugged up the collar of his jacket a little, hoping to shield himself from some of the downpour as he continued to search, barely managing to make out the shapes of things through the wall of rain that’d suddenly formed and once again Ryan found himself forcing back statistics about hypothermia as he traipsed through it, idly wondering if any of his other boyfriends had managed to find shelter as he ducked under a tree in the hopes that clearing his vision of the rainwater a little would give him a better gauge on his surroundings…

It was then that he’d spotted him, curled up in a tight ball and nestled near the foot of the bark and suddenly Ryan found himself immensely grateful for the lack of lightning in the nearby vicinity because otherwise he could’ve found something very different under this tree…

He was on his knees in seconds, prying away ice cold hands from the man’s knees as he lifted Ray’s head to face his, panicking a little at the apparent lack of recognition that seemed to register in the man’s gaze… and when he pressed his hands to the man’s face, he believed he might just know why that was… because it was ice cold, colder even than the night air that continued to whip around them, and before Ryan even knew what he was doing he was shrugging off his jacket, wrapping it around his boyfriend’s shoulders before pulling out his phone and calling Geoff.

“Geoff I’ve found him but he’s ice cold and doesn’t even seem to recognize me and... he’s going to need medical attention, immediately.”

\----

The first thing Ray registered when he woke up was brightness and lots of it, searing through his eyelids before they’d even fluttered open to take in his surroundings. The second thing he registered was how the chill in his bones from before seemed to be gone, something warmer, more comfortable, replacing it. The third thing he registered was the slightest beep and whir of machinery next to his ear… And the fourth thing he’d noticed, as he’d finally fully blinked himself awake, was Ryan’s expression from where he sat at the end of Ray’s bed… it was nothing short of _fuming_.

And before he knew it, he’d found himself apologizing in a desperate babble of words that probably only half made sense outside his head, considering how fuzzy and disoriented it felt right now … But none of that fucking mattered so long as his boyfriend _knew_ how sorry he was about the stuff he’d yelled at him, at all of them, before storming out. His words had been harsh and cruel and so fucking wrong and, honestly, Ryan had every damn right to be mad about it right now… but at the same time Ray couldn’t quite bear to see that justified anger in the man’s eyes and so a part of him had to, perhaps selfishly, try to ease it, if only a little bit... His apologies didn’t seem to be having their desired effect though. In fact, if anything, they just seemed to be making Ryan more and more pissed off to the point that the man had finally broken and snapped at him.

“For fuck’s sake we know you didn’t mean it, how can you think that this is what I’m pissed about? I’m pissed because when I found you under that tree you were ice cold, non-responsive and almost paralytic. I’m pissed because we had to rush you to hospital with a case of hypothermia so severe that you could’ve died. I’m pissed because if we’d been less shocked by your outburst, we’d have been able to stop you from rushing out like that, or at the very least stop you from rushing out without a hoodie or phone or something and… I’m pissed because if I’d arrived any later than I had under that tree, we’d have lost you…” And suddenly Ray realized that his boyfriend’s anger had nothing to do with what he’d said before he’d stormed out or in fact was really targeted at him at all. Because Ryan was more angry at himself than Ray… and then he was in the older man’s arms and now it was Ryan who was murmuring apologies into _his_ neck as Ray ran his hands in soothing patterns across the man’s back.

And a few moments later the others were let in to see him and he couldn’t quite believe how relieved his boyfriends’ expressions were. The way Gavin had practically launched himself at him when he’d been let in, the way Michael had immediately claimed the seat closest to Ray on his right, hand finding his as the redhead had leant to press a soft kiss to his forehead, the way Jack had pressed a similar kiss to his cheek before claiming his left hand and pressing a kiss to that too, the way Geoff had looked just as apologetic as Ryan and suddenly it seemed damn ridiculous that Ray had thought, even for a moment, that his boys wouldn’t want him after the outburst he’d had earlier.

He’d apologized for what he’d said anyway though, knowing that he owed them that even if they all seemed too relieved that he was okay right now to really give a damn about the reason he’d wound up putting himself in danger in the first place. And then he’d apologized for worrying them and storming out and generally being pretty crappy as far as communication went in their relationship. And he’d made them a promise after that, to never put them through any of that again, something in his heart clenching almost painfully at the obvious relief in his boyfriends’ eyes as he did. But really, that was no more than what he deserved after what he’d just put them through and his boyfriends’ presence at his bedside actually went a long way to soothing that ache as he lightly squeezed both Michael and Jack’s hands, offering them and the rest of his boys a slightly weak but genuine smile that only widened as the pair had lightly squeezed back.

They’d all ended up staying with him a good hour beyond the specified visiting times, the nurse that was in the charge of the ward not quite having the heart to kick them out after she’d seen the way they’d all been so attentive to Ray while he’d been out of it. Apparently they’d spent a small fortune on coffee just to make sure they’d be awake when he was and Ryan especially had been adamant about being there for whenever Ray eventually woke up.

And so when his boys had eventually left that night, promising to return as soon as they were allowed the next day to help Ray discharge himself from the hospital, Ray had made himself promise something else. Because today his boys had so obviously proven that they loved him, even if Ray was pretty damn sure now that he didn’t deserve that love. And so he’d vowed to himself to never doubt it again.

Fact was, Ray Narvaez Jr must’ve been the luckiest guy on the whole goddamn planet because somehow he’d managed to secure the unconditional love of the five men who, as corny as it sounded (and boy did it sound corny) kind of gave his life meaning at this point. They loved him, despite the odds and the pretty hefty wealth of evidence that stated that he didn’t deserve it and so now he just had to act more worthy of the affection they gave. Be more like the man they saw in him than the one he saw in himself… and never run away from a goddamn situation like this again because he’d made his boys a promise, and he fully intended to keep it.


End file.
